Typically, businesses lease high cost equipment rather than purchasing the equipment outright. Leasing may be obtained from a financial institution that has purchased the equipment or from the original equipment manufacturer. When equipment is leased from a financial institution, it is typically sold off at the end of a lease (EOL) for the fair market value of the equipment. When equipment is leased from a manufacturer, however, it may be more profitable for the manufacturer to break down, or de-manufacture, EOL machinery and sell the individual parts of the machine separately. Selling the equipment as a whole, however, may be more profitable. As a third alternative, some combination of both options may yield the highest profit, which is typically the case. The exact combination of machine sales to parts sales to maximize profit, however, is difficult to calculate.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a system for determining the most profitable solution for EOL equipment disposal and thereby use returned EOL equipment to maximize value to the leasing entity.